


Dark Halves

by WorryinglyInnocent



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: A Monthly Rumbelling, F/M, Lacey and Belle, Light and Dark Halves, NSFW, PWP, Rumplestiltskin and the Dark One, Serum Characters, Smut, Split Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-07-04 06:51:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15836025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: An accident with Dr Jekyll’s serum causes everyone in town to split into their light and dark halves. This causes some rather interesting shenanigans when Belle and Rumpelstiltskin’s light halves spontaneously switch places with their dark…(Set in a nebulous alternate S5-6 in which everything is happy.)Written for the @a-monthly-rumbelling prompt: “Body Swap” and inspired bythis gifset





	Dark Halves

In hindsight, allowing Dr Jekyll to bring his serum to Storybrooke was a bad idea. In addition to the potential for it to be stolen and used for nefarious purposes, there was also the alarmingly high probability of its potent effects being released upon the unsuspecting town entirely by accident.

Ever since Henry had taken up the mantle of the author and begun experimenting with the quill and its powers, a steady stream of new personalities had been filtering into Storybrooke from all of the unwritten worlds around it. For the most part, they were harmless. Dr Jekyll himself was comparatively harmless. His concoction, however, was less so.

Thanks to the laws of coincidence which appeared to apply almost exclusively to Storybrooke thanks to its magical origins, one such innocent accident had just occurred as a result of the aforementioned not quite so innocent intent. Regina had gone into the laboratory in search of the serum to use for her own ends, to finally split off the evil queen from her personality once and for all.

As it was, she’d had the misfortune to sneeze at the exact same moment that she located the serum, the bottle flying from her hand and smashing on the floor.

With the serum now airborne, Storybrooke had undergone something that could euphemistically be called culture shock. All of the sudden, the town’s population doubled as every person’s dark side became detached and developed a mind and body of its own.

Naturally, Storybrooke’s authority figures had done the most logical thing that they could do in the circumstances. They had gone to see Rumpelstiltskin.

Rumpelstiltskin, whose scaly, impish Dark One form was currently poofing around town giggling like a maniac, was one step ahead of them, already holed up in the back room with Belle working on an antidote. He shooed Snow, Charming and Emma out of the shop, telling them that he would call them as soon as he was finished, and leaving them to go and round up their alternate personalities before they could cause too much damage, he returned to the back room.

“Honestly,” he grumbled to Belle as they combed through his stock of ingredients. “Why is it that whenever anything goes wrong in this town, I’m always the one who’s expected to fix it even if I didn’t have anything to do with the problem in the first place?”

“Well, they do say that you’re the most powerful magician in all the realms, darling,” Belle said sweetly. “Are you going to deny that?”

“No, I just don’t see where along the line ‘greatest magician’ and ‘greatest problem-solver’ come to mean the same thing. Besides, my power comes from the Dark One and that’s not currently part of me, so everything’s going to take twice as long as normal without my magic.”

Belle just rolled her eyes and came over, giving him a kiss on the cheek. Just as Rumpelstiltskin was about to turn and plant one on her lips, Belle took a step back, her brow furrowing.

“Belle? Love? Is something wrong?”

She shook her head, then nodded.

“I don’t know what’s happening,” she said. “I feel very strange.”

Rumpelstiltskin didn’t feel entirely like himself either, now that Belle had mentioned it. It was very weird. He couldn’t really describe it; it was as if his mind wasn’t really attached to his body properly.

Belle smiled, a hungry, seductive sort of smile, and Rumpelstiltskin backed up.

“Belle? Are you all right?”

“Oh yes,” she purred. “I’m perfect. A bad girl for a bad, bad boy. Are you a bad boy, Rumpel?”

Rumpelstiltskin realised with a churning stomach what had happened. Belle’s light and dark halves had switched places. The Belle that he’d been talking to only a couple of moments ago was now somewhere else in Storybrooke in her counterpart’s body.

The strange detached sensation was getting stronger, and he gulped. Whatever had happened to Belle was likely to be happening to him too. Any minute now, his mind would be whisked away to inhabit scales and dragonhide once more whilst the Dark One wore Mr Gold’s pristine suit.

He closed his eyes for a moment, trying not to panic, and when he opened them again, he was staring at his own reflection in Granny’s window, his skin sparkling a little in the waning evening sun.

Although the outlandish appearance had remained, the Dark One appeared to have taken the magic with it when he had switched bodies, and as poofing away was no longer going to be a viable option, he legged it away from the diner before Granny’s dark half could get too happy with the crossbow.

His first priority had to be finding Belle, being as she now would be in Lacey’s body. He really didn’t want either of her halves to be getting into any trouble, but Lacey was far more likely to find it than Belle was, and he would hate for Belle to have suddenly found herself in the midst of something that Lacey had created.

He set off in the direction of the Rabbit Hole, figuring that it was just as good a place to start looking as any, and he had just reached the door when he saw a familiar figure in blue sequins peer around the edge of the building nervously.

“Belle?” he hissed. “Is that you?”

She peeped out again.

“Rumpel? Did you switch too? One minute I was in the shop and the next I was in the ladies’ bathroom in there. I slipped out of the back.”

“Same; I was suddenly standing outside the diner.”

“What do we do now?” Belle wrapped her arms around herself, cold in the chilly Maine air in Lacey’s skimpy outfit.

Rumpelstiltskin went over to her and put his arms around her.

“I know I’m not usually one for using magic in trivial circumstances, but do you think that you could poof us back to the shop?” Belle asked. “I mean, if our dark halves are still there then perhaps we could do something to get us switched back into the right bodies. Or, you know, get both halves of us merged together again.”

“I would, but my other half appears to have taken his magic with him.”

“Oh well. I guess we’ll just have to walk.”

Rumpelstiltskin kept an arm around her as they made their way back towards the pawn shop, but he still couldn’t help noticing the pale expanse of Belle’s back crisscrossed with the straps of her dress. When Belle had been Lacey for the first time, he had done his utmost to remain a gentleman around her, not sure of what Belle would think once she was back with him, but now this was Belle in this dress, his Belle, fully conscious of what she was doing and indeed what she was wearing.

He gave an embarrassed little cough and looked in the other direction.

“What’s the matter, Rumpel?” Belle looked at him, and unless he was very much mistaken, he saw a little flush rising in her cheeks.

“Oh nothing, nothing. Just… Admiring Lacey’s dress sense.”

Belle grinned. “That’s good. I was just admiring the Dark One’s dress sense too.” She fingered the edgings of his stiff leather collar, stopping in her tracks and coming around to face him. “You know, back in the Dark Castle, I did always wonder what it would be like to be this close to you. I mean, I know I’ve been closer than this to you before now, but that was here in Storybrooke, with your human skin and your sharp suits.”

Rumpelstiltskin gulped.

“Are you suggesting that we make the most of this temporary switch?” he asked.

Belle nodded. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t. I mean, this is likely going to be the only opportunity I’ll get to see what’s underneath that leather.”

“It’s not a pretty sight, Belle,” Rumpelstiltskin warned. “The scales do go all the way down, you know. I think you’d much prefer me as you’ve already seen me.”

Belle just raised an eyebrow. “Are you absolutely sure about that, Rumpelstiltskin?”

They had reached the pawn shop by this point, and they went inside to find that the place was deserted. Wherever Lacey and the Dark One had gone off to, they were no longer in sight, but given that his dark half could appear at any moment, Rumpelstiltskin thought that time might be of the essence if he and Belle were going to do any exploring. Besides, he figured, pulling in Belle close against him and kissing her deeply before giving in to her forceful ministrations and letting her push him back down onto the cot. He had no idea how long they might be in this switch for, and it would certainly be very interesting should they switch back at an inopportune moment.

“I know you liked this dress,” Belle said. “I could tell, back when I was Lacey. You very much wanted to get underneath it but you were too much of a gentleman at the time.”

She straddled him on the cot, pulling the dress up over her head to reveal the sheer black panties beneath it, and she grabbed Rumpelstiltskin’s hands, placing them over her breasts. He pinched her nipples, rubbing them into hard points.

“Oh Belle…” He groaned as she leaned in for another kiss, helpless to do anything else as she began to attack his layers of clothing.

“I’ll say one thing for your suits,” she muttered. “They’re a lot easier to get off you.”

It took them a little while to get him out of the leather, not helped by Rumpelstiltskin’s teasing touches to Belle’s naked skin, but at last he was as bare as she was, and she pulled away, looking down at him in wonder.

“You’re so beautiful in this skin,” she said, tracing her fingertip down the underside of his throbbing cock where it was lying flush against his belly. “To think, if we’d got our act together back in the Dark Castle, I could have seen this even sooner.”

She scrambled out of her panties and soon they were kissing again in a clumsy tangle of lips and hair and hands, trying to touch everywhere at once, both focussed on the other’s pleasure and falling into fits of giggles as they tried to make sense of all their limbs. Finally, Belle lined them up, sinking down onto Rumpel’s cock and closing her eyes as she braced her weight against his shoulders.

She was still Belle, for all she might have been wearing Lacey’s clothes before, and she still felt like heaven. Perhaps that was the point, perhaps their light and dark halves weren’t so different after all. Maybe acceptance was the key to that.

As he brought a hand to the place where they joined, seeking out Belle’s clit so that she could feel the same wonderful pleasure that he was feeling, a flash of something darted across Rumpelstiltskin’s vision. He was still inside Belle, but the setting was different, they were in his house, sprawled on the staircase, as if they’d been too overcome with need to make it any further.

“Rumpel?” Belle gasped. “Rumpel, I…”

He couldn’t concentrate on Belle’s voice any longer and he came hard, throwing his head back and closing his eyes.

When he opened them, he was on the stairs, Lacey beneath him, screaming his name. He looked down at himself; the scaled skin was gone and his suit was back, dishevelled and with just the barest minimum removed. Belle’s skirt was rucked around Lacey’s hips and her panties were dangling off one ankle.

Lacey blinked, and looked up at him.

“Rumpel?” she hedged, panting.

He nodded.

“Belle?”

She gave a nod. “Yes. It’s me. But I think… I think it might be Lacey too.”

Pulling out of her as he began to soften, Rumpelstiltskin pulled up his pants and sat down on the step beside her. He could feel the magic pulsing in his veins again, which he had not felt when his dark half had been separated from him. Yes, the Dark One was back in his mind again; their two halves had become whole once more.

“Well, that’s certainly one way of undoing the serum,” Belle observed, before giving a snort of laughter and leaning across to kiss him. “I’m not sure that we should market this one as a way of getting everyone else in the town back into one person again.”

“Having an orgasm at the same time as your dark half is definitely a novel way of doing it,” Rumpelstiltskin agreed.

“It’s good that our dark halves are as attracted to each other as our light halves are,” Belle said. “Although, I think that was a foregone conclusion. I’ve always been attracted to all of you. Even the parts that belong to the darkness.”

“And I you.”

“I must say though, I am very glad that I got the chance to be intimate with your imp form.” Belle snuggled in close to his side. “You don’t know how long I’ve been thinking about that, all the little daydreams I had.”

Rumpelstiltskin looked at her sharply, his eyebrows raised. “I beg your pardon?”

“Shall we move off the stairs to somewhere more comfortable, and I can tell your some more about the little fantasies I had whilst we were in the Dark Castle together?”

Rumpelstiltskin nodded eagerly. The townsfolk would soon notice that his and Belle’s dark halves were no longer running around town, and when that happened they would be inundated with requests for assistance. They might as well make the most of whatever time they had.

He was certainly looking forward to hearing all about the things that Belle had dreamed of when he had still worn his other skin.


End file.
